Linking with people, nature through a club

The 35^th PALMC anniversary cum Christmas party organized by the current leadership headed by Chairperson Shirryl Goduco drew a sizeable turn out at the Escalades Tower function room in Barangay Murphy Cubao last 29 November 2014.

It generated even more attention online both pre and post event from members and friends all over the continent, thanks to the Facebook posting.

The gathering had the elements of a conventional Christmas party: registration with a modest fee, pre-prepared and pot luck food, program hosted by special friends, games participated in by member couples, gifts and prizes, musical numbers, Christmas decors among others.

Touches of artifacts of a typical mountaineering club gathering which defined the club were in place: a photo exhibit, awarding tenured members present with at least a decade and a half years logged as members, accomplishments for 2014, sampling of the program in 2015 to come, food and booze, LCD projector and audio system for the slide and video showing and most importantly, booze.

Important must-haves defined the event: an opening remark of founder John Fortes highlighting the message that membership is driven not by events and activities but by relationship which explains why linkages transcend time; club’s social responsibility tapping its affinity with nature through the organization of rescue operations shown in video by VP Francis Davantes entitled Flight of Hope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spmq51XcKRo ; a 20-minute slide showing of some climbing highlights from 2000-2014 created by Dom, projected with his son and the presence of members.

The President Russel Aguinaldo admitted that the club is facing some membership and activity situations partly contributed by the transitions or the corporate restructuring and other reasons. Sad, that a pioneering mountaineering club still has to overcome these challenges.

But towards the end, with more senior and illustrious members catching up with the gathering and the showing of the highlights of half a decade of PALMC, memories of ecstatic moments with club members, climbs, travels, camp site socials, assaults, land, boat and air transfers quickly triggered a flashback.  Strong memories of a past event that comes suddenly flashed into most members’ minds. This validated John’s message that the club built and nurtured relationship with people, co-climbers, community and with nature.

And if just a sight of a single photo in the past is enough to trigger those ecstatic memories, the club must really seeded a special linkage with its membership.

Happy Anniversary. Merry Christmas and Congratulations!

Some notes:
-John, typical of his colleagues was among the 1st to arrive and of course the 1st to leave. Know more about John and MFPI at this site: http://mfpi.wordpress.com/about
-After the showing, it took some time for the guests to leave as stories were still narrated. The activity was followed up eventually with a post gathering at an undisclosed place.
-Credits to the organizers whose names escape me as of the moment.
-For an idea on the attendance, refer to the fotos posted by other members.